


Frozen

by ElsieMcClay



Series: Voltron Fics [11]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: M/M, Sick Keith (Voltron), Sickfic, yall im getting tired this might be the last one for tonight :/
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-05
Updated: 2017-11-05
Packaged: 2019-01-29 16:40:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12634983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElsieMcClay/pseuds/ElsieMcClay
Summary: Keith is a little bit past cold.





	Frozen

**Author's Note:**

> Originally for voltronwhumpweek2017

Keith has cold hands like 97% of the time. The other 3%, he’s holding Hunk’s hand. Hunk has some pretty nice hands, and they’re really warm. Hunk, in general, is just warm. Keith is not. You’d think that being the “fire paladin” he’d be the warm one and Lance would be the cold one, but no. It’s the other way around. Keith only knows because Lance likes to stand close to people, and he stands in the back of the group a lot, and he just radiates heat. Lance and Hunk are the warmest people on the team. Pidge is just kind of room temperature, and Shiro feels like a corpse. Allura and Coran are a different species, and Keith isn’t about to hug either of them or hold their hands or anything. 

Keith doesn’t really notice being cold very much. Well, not until he’s trying to warm himself up after a mission on some really cold planet, and his hands brush against his skin, and it just gets so much worse. Hunk usually just comes and sits or stands or lays next to him, and it helps. 

With anyone else, Keith would refuse physical touch. Hunk needs affection, though. He thrives off it, and Keith doesn’t mind his hugs. Who is he to deprive both of them of the stuff they want and need? 

Allura has started sending them on missions together. Well, the missions that only need two people. The others, obviously, they’re together for because the entire team is there. Anyway, back to the problem at hand (ha, hands because that’s what he was talking about before). It’s way too cold on this stupid planet, and Keith is shivering. There are goosebumps up and down his arms, even with the armor Coran modified to be thicker and warmer. There’s snow and sleet and wind whipping at their faces as they search for any signs of life. The Galra plans Pidge managed to get indicated that this was going to be the next planet to be taken over by their empire. So far, there hasn’t been a plant, animal, or alien (or any sign of any) on this planet. There are just icicles whizzing past their heads. Yet they trek on. They had to leave Yellow out in orbit and fly a pod down. The pod had a rocky landing–pray for Hunk, please–but it is still intact. Well, last time they saw it, it was, but now? After all this wind? It’s kind of a gamble to say whether or not it’s in one piece or not. 

It’s too much for Keith. He hates the cold. The cold is Lance’s thing. Not really, but it’s his lion’s thing. Even Hunk is shivering. Hunk has enough body mass to almost always be warm (it’s muscle, not fat by the way), so his shivering and chattering teeth are saying something about this planet’s temperature. 

It’s all white. They have to stand pretty much shoulder to shoulder to make sure they don’t lose each other. Keith isn’t complaining about being close to Hunk, but the fact that there could be a Galra, just out of their range of sight is putting him on edge. There could be a rabid animal, stalking them from a few feet away, getting ready to pounce. The animals and people of this planet have adaptations that make it easier to live in such a harsh place, according to Coran. It makes sense. No one would be able to live on this planet for very long without adapting. 

There’s a crack under Hunk’s foot, and he jumps away from the sound. Keith already has his knife out, and he’s ready to strike. 

“Ice?” Hunk mutters. Keith puts his knife away, but he doesn’t relax. They can’t hear much over the screaming of the wind, but they can see the faint, darker outline of a form across the frozen lake. There’s more cracking, and the figure moves. It looks like it’s looking up, then around, then it’s frantically scrambling away. The weather is starting to calm down, which is the planet’s day and night cycle coming into play. It’s about to get a lot colder, and that lake is not going to be a nice dip for that alien. Without thinking, Keith dashes across the lake, sliding across the ice when he gets to the alien. He thrusts upward and releases the alien toward the snowy bank nearby. He hears the shriek of the alien, the crack of the ice below his boots, and the desperate “Keith” before there’s a pain in his head and a freezing force around him.

Drowning in water colder than ice is like being cemented in place. You can’t move in the slightest. Even your organs feel like they’re frozen in place. Then, your body burns. It feels like pieces of your skin are flaking off and disintegrating. Your body goes into auto pilot. After that, everything will get a little blurry. There will be too much water in your lungs to even think, and you’ll hear your slowing heart pounding irregularly in your ears. You’ll want to swim up, but all you’ll be able to do is float and sink. 

Hunk pulls Keith out by the hand. He’s soaked and pale, way too pale. And he’s not–he’s not breathing. 

There’s a gash across his head, too, from where he hit it on the ice when it broke. There’s so much blood, and Keith isn’t breathing. His pulse is weak but there, so at least he’s alive. Hunk doesn’t want to take his armor off, but he has too, and it’s not helping Keith anymore. Hunk hums the song they had to sing when they learned chest compressions as he does them on Keith. It’s terrifying, then Keith is coughing and gasping. Water comes out of his mouth, and he opens his eyes. The alien from before is gone, their footprints already being covered in snow from the storm around them. Hunk lifts Keith easily. He walks against the wind, back to the pod, praying it’s still in one piece. 

It’s in one piece, fortunately. The trek back was long, and Keith seemed to get worse with every step. The pod is warmer, but Keith is only partially conscious. He’s shaking so hard he might be having a seizure and Hunk wouldn’t be able to tell. He’s mumbling and looking around at everything with glassy eyes. Hunk sets the pod to auto pilot with Yellow’s coordinates and turns the pod’s temperature up in small increments. 

It doesn’t really help that much. 

The med-bay isn’t prepared when they get back. Hunk wasn’t paying attention. He was busy trying to not crash with the weather conditions and nursing his boyfriend back to relative consciousness. He definitely has a concussion and hypothermia and who knows what else. 

“You’re back–” Pidge’s eyes widen, and they curse. They slide their computer off their lap and sprint down the hall to the med-bay. Hunk runs after her, and Keith groans as his head bounces off Hunk’s arm. 

The metal of the bed they put Keith on is cold. It seriously doesn’t help him warm up, and he’s having trouble breathing. His chest feels like a boat decided to dock on it, and he’s coughing so hard it’s making his head hurt even more. He can’t breathe. There’s nothing in his lungs except the murky water from the frozen lake Hunk’s comforting presence is around him, cradling him. Keith can faintly hear the anxiety-ridden shouts that he somehow identifies as Hunk. Then, he’s being left alone, and he can’t think. There’s not enough oxygen getting to his brain. He whines. If he were totally conscious right now, he’d be mortified, but he’s not. He feels eerily alone, and he just wants Hunk to hold him. He wants to be warm. His last thought before there’s a quiet shwoop and his mind goes blank is the thought of Hunk cuddling him just last night. 

Hunk is warm when Keith gets out of the pod. He’s not as cold as he was when he went in, but he’s not warmer. Still cold and shivering, but he’s not dying of hypothermia anymore. Hunk’s body heat is like heaven on…in space? Keith doesn’t have the energy to care. He can breathe, and he can leech off Hunk’s body heat. 

The cold really did bother him anyway. Did he just–oh my gosh. Keith just…the lack of oxygen messed with his brain. Yeah, we’ll go with that excuse.

**Author's Note:**

> Follow my tumblr--elsiemcclay!!!


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